Saturday, 24 May 2014

Even before I ever went to the Chelsea Flower Show - there was always a certain flower that I always had my eye on. Of course my eyes were one of millions of fans for the roses grown and cultivated by David Austin that won a gold medal again this year.

I remember having a catalogue of the amazing range of flowers as a coffee table book.

So it was only natural that I visit their stand and am sharing for fellow fans of their flowers.

There are three main sections to the show so I shall start with the show gardens.

The first one was the M&G Garden ( more and much better pics on the link) designed by the now legend Cleve West.

He has won best in show twice recently!

This year he won a gold medal to add to his awards.

Interestingly this garden epitomized the trend seen elsewhere where it was rather wild and loose with a lot of long grass planting.

Sorry if I have offended gardeners with my very raw, basic and inarticulate description.

The next garden of note was the BrandAlley show garden ( please click for more information on the garden) that won a bronze. I quite liked it but the designer was interviewed by Monty Don and expressed his disappointment which is rare because garden designers rarely admit things like that!

Wednesday, 14 May 2014

Part of the reason from my extended absence was I had to go to Seoul, Korea to take care of a few things.

There are so many facets to the city that I hardly know where to start.

Instead of trying to pack a hugely edited potpourri of tidbits, I plan on sharing aspects of the culture and city in several posts to share with those of you who may be interested.

One aspect I found interesting myself was shopping in Seoul.Seoul has always been a market town for hundreds of years and is the same today.It has famous street markets but also has created a shopping niche that I have only seen in Tokyo.Luxury shopping around the world in this postmodern age of globalization has become so universal.If you enter a high end brand boutique anywhere around the world, it is the physical embodiment of CNN - you could be anywhere.But in Seoul, they take luxury shopping to the next level.A boutique doesn't suffice, they make stand alone buildings.

Friday, 9 May 2014

So we went from Kim Kardashian on the cover to someone called Emma Stone.I am sure she is nice enough but who is she?Forgive me but I knew she wasn't a model - not that means I didn't think she was attractive but we all know that a model looks a certain way.But the real problem is that I have no compunction to read the several page spread to find out who she is.Anna Wintour misses. Again.